Noteworthy grads

Gail Salem, an actress-turned-top-realtor, was a daydreamer as a child. The first teacher to penetrate Salem’s fanciful fortress of make believe was Mrs. Leherer, her 3rd-grade teacher at PS 184 in Whitestone, Queens, in the 1960s.

Everything Jani Decena-White, who teaches English at Hudson County Community College in New Jersey, needed to become an effective and inspiring educator, she learned in the fourth grade from Miss Harris, her teacher at PS 115 in Washington Heights.

Jelani Cobb, a graduate of Jamaica HS in the class of 1987, has constructed a life at the nexus of academia and journalism. “Jamaica HS set me in good stead academically, intellectually and socially,” he says.

One of the summer’s big stories was the environmental crisis in Toledo, Ohio, where algae blooms in Lake Erie made the water supply undrinkable for several days. It’s an issue with which Menachem Tabanpour is intimately familiar: He has been studying phosphorous in wastewater ever since he was a student at James Madison HS in Brooklyn.

George Monasterio oversees the design, construction and aesthetics of Grand Central and Metro-North’s outlying stations — which makes him responsible for supervising everything from the erection of railroad overpasses to the blueprints of a new store inside the terminal.

Millions read Jane Brody’s Personal Health column in The New York Times for advice on healthy eating, exercise and the latest research on staying hale and fit. Her column has run since 1976, but she’s been a staff writer at The Times since 1965, when she was the only woman in the science department.

From an early age, Liza Miller Davis, now an archeologist for New Jersey’s Department of Environmental Protection, loved and excelled in math and science in an era when that was unusual for girls. Her public school teachers not only supported her academic interests, but helped her take the next step in her education.

Sandra Fabara, known as the “first lady of graffiti,” credits her public school teachers with encouraging her talent and modeling the life of a working artist. Her work is now in collections nationally, internationally and at the Metropolitan, Whitney and Brooklyn museums in New York City.

Working at the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station among rocket ships and spacecraft, Brian Bomser says he is “literally living my dream.” That dream blasted off for Brian as a 7th-grader at Louis Armstrong MS, when the opportunity to attend space camp with his classmates launched him toward a career in aerospace engineering.

Edward Summers, as the director of the Kelly Adirondack Research Center at Union College, drives the research agenda for the study of the Adirondack Park. Summers credits his success to his experience in New York City public schools, from a 2nd-grade teacher who rewarded her class with a pizza party to a high school history teacher who engaged him with classroom debates.

A 1978 graduate of John Dewey HS in Gravesend, and before that of Reynolds JHS in Sheepshead Bay, the little boy who said “OK” a lot at PS 268 in East Flatbush went on to shine, thanks to a small, powerful teacher named Mrs. Leibowitz.

Judge Tingling, who halted Bloomberg’s ban on oversized sugary drinks, went to school in Harlem in the 1960s. “My 3rd-grade teacher Ms. Commack recently reached out to me; my teachers say they are proud of me. But not more than I am of them,” he says. “There’s no way I’d be doing this today without them."

Amanda Brown is familiar to millions as a contestant this past season on NBC’s hit vocal-competition show “The Voice.” After attending PS 163 and PS 58 in the Bronx, she went to MS 80, where music teacher David Kazansky pushed her in 8th grade to audition for LaGuardia HS of Music & Art and Performing Arts.

Joshua Freeman is a professor of history at Queens College and the Graduate Center of the City University of New York and the author of numerous books and articles on the history of labor unions and the sociology of working-class people.

Jon Bauer, a co-founder, chief executive operating officer and chief investment officer of Contrarian Capital Management, which invests in troubled companies and helps them restructure their finances, was “blown away” when he first learned about economics as a boy.

Marisa Tomei shot to national attention in 1992 in “My Cousin Vinny,” in which she played brash, foul-mouthed New York mechanic Mona Lisa Vito, a longtime fiancee (with her biological clock ticking) who is called to testify as an expert witness in a murder case in Alabama. She won an Academy Award for best supporting actress for that comedic tour de force and hasn’t slowed down since, appearing on Broadway and in TV shows and other movies.

“I could have been one of those gangbangers,” said Charles Briggs of the youth he serves as treasurer of the Detroit Hispanic Development Corporation. One of its initiatives that he proudly supports is a gang tattoo removal program for erasing the marks that can doom a child.

His rank — Second Mate Unlimited Tonnage Upon the Oceans — entitles merchant mariner Scott Adler to ship out on any size vessel anywhere in the world, as long as his union, the Marine Engineers Benevolent Association, approves the job and clears it with the U.S. Coast Guard.

John Eric Parker’s journey from Crown Heights to the bright lights has been as difficult as that of any actor trying to make it on Broadway. But Parker had a big advantage. He connected with teachers who believed in him.